tracing your fingertips
by Shiluette
Summary: In which Keigo wants to be a gentleman and Ryoma forbids him to. Early stages of Atoryo.


So I am incapable of writing long meaningful shit so am resorting to vomiting drabbles.

0

Echizen's hips are hollow. His fingers trace his ribs, one after another, as Echizen arches without a sound. His eyes are not closed yet. They watch him, as he peels off layers, and sees the boy's thin wrists, white, and on instinct, he kisses a blue vein trailing along the juncture.

Echizen makes a small sound. It might have been a purr.

His other hand on a foreign mouth: Echizen opens his mouth, almost grudgingly, and his fingers slid in. Echizen sucks lazily. When his fingers come out with a small _pop_, he feels the chill of the air.

Echizen says,

He wakes up.

0

"What," present-day, ever-present, ever-real, Echizen says.

Keigo doesn't avert his gaze. "Hm?" he instead inquires politely. That is what one is supposed to do, he presumes, in a foreign setting.

"What are you staring at me for." Echizen is not the type to mince words around, Keigo knew from day one. He is also not the one to be handling etiquette, as he is talking loudly in a library he is currently in charge of. A few people nearby cast wary glances at them.

"Keep your voice down," Keigo says mildly, and raises an eyebrow at the tag Echizen is wearing, and the counter that is dividing them apart. "You're supposed to be the one shushing people."

"I can't do that when you're loitering around," Echizen snaps, but his voice is quieter. It makes a hissing sound.

"I'm not loitering," he says. "I'm standing in one place."

"Harassing me."

"Waiting in one place."

"Waiting for me to get off so you can harass me."

Keigo gives him a pained smile. "Are you going to keep up this unpleasantness?"

Echizen glumly shifts a pile of books and sorts through the book flaps. "When you're staring at me like that, then yeah," he says.

"Like what?"

"Something." Echizen was not the most poetic in his speech, but even this abstraction was beyond him. He sighs and gestures, irritated, to a table in front of him. "Sit over there or something. I can't concentrate."

"Is my face too alluring for you?" He enjoys provoking the boy; Echizen doesn't blush, but his scowl does become harder.

"If you mean alluring for a punch, then yes." He mirrors Keigo's pained smile from a moment ago and points to the chair again. "Sit down and ogle at someone else."

Ogle. That was a new word.

He obeys, if only from this vantage point he could observe Echizen a bit better.

Echizen's skin wasn't white from his dream, for a start. His wrists were a faint brown, he knows, from all the sun and tennis. They have paled a bit now, because it is still too cold to be playing tennis, even though the weather has thawed. His arms are thin, his waist, he supposes, are hollow, from the glimpses he has seen when the boy carelessly undressed in front of him, after a match and after a shower. He had looked without meaning to look.

He wonders what sounds Echizen would make.

0

After, Keigo waits while Echizen bundles up and closes the library and straightens out his school tie. He makes a face when Keigo opens the door for him but he also bumps his hand against Keigo's once, twice, so that Keigo would know it was not in coincidence. Keigo thinks about calling Gerald, but a walk would be nice. It is a nice day for March, after all.

"One of these days, Eiji-senpai is going to see you," Echizen says.

"Kikumaru?" Keigo looks up at the sky: light blue without clouds and without the shine of the sun. "What about him?"

"If he sees you, it'll be everywhere in the tennis circuit."

"You're a morbid little brat," Keigo drawls, "We can bribe him."

"Your head's in the clouds," Echizen says, and with a poke, Keigo's vision is rudely jolted back to the ground and Echizen. "This isn't one of your business dealings."

"What would you know about business dealings?"

Echizen frowns at him. It is a frown that means, _I'm serious, listen to me because I mean serious_. Mostly the frown is petulant and makes the boy look younger than his sixteen years. Keigo does what he wants to do when he sees that frown.

He tousles the boy's black hair.

Echizen jerks away. "Don't do that," he snaps. "And what I mean is, Eiji-senpai would eat your bribe and still tell. If that even makes sense."

"I'm sure he's a nicer version of Gakuto," Keigo says, "Less aggressive. I'll live."

Echizen is still frowning at him. Keigo wonders if they will spend their walk arguing over trivial matters as such. But Echizen soon sighs and gives up, and announces they will go over to Keigo's house for an indoor tennis match, and does not ask for Keigo's opinions on the matter.

0

After the match. Keigo touches the boy's lips without meaning to.

Well, he thinks, now that's a lie. He had every intention to, but he quickly removes his fingers because he didn't expect himself to act on impulse.

"Your lips," he says, by way of explanation, "They're a bit chapped."

Echizen cocks his head and looks at him. He narrows his eyes. Knowingly, his eyes glint and a faint trace of a smirk that is not quite there forms.

"Hm," he says, and he touches his own lips with his fingers. His fingers are streaked with dirt.

Keigo looks away. "Should I call Gerald?" he says, "Or are you staying for dinner?"

Echizen doesn't answer at first, and then, "I'll stay the night."

He reminds himself, _breathe, or you will faint._

0

Echizen frowns when, after dinner, Keigo leads him to a guest bedroom. He surveys his new room sullenly, and his sullenness is somewhat grating. He does not want the boy to be unsatisfied, no matter how illogical those problems may be.

"Is there something wrong?" he asks.

It is one of the modern guest rooms with simple drapes and roomy spaces. He chose it for the reason that Echizen does not look like the person to be liking lace, rococo, lavish settings. But Echizen fixes his scowl onto the room, to the bed, and finally, to Keigo.

"No," he says, curt, then changes his mind. "I mean, yeah. There is."

"Pray make up your mind," he says, with indefinite patience. "What is it?"

Echizen studies him. He feels like he is being dissected, somewhat; Echizen's eyes are wide and unnerving, boring into him like that.

"Is your bed not big enough for the two of us?" he asks.

"Of course it's big—" and then, pause. That came out on instinct. He stops just in time and Echizen's smirk stops just in time as well. "Big," he says stiffly, "But not big enough, no. Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark, Echizen."

The smirk morphs into a scowl. "Positively horrified," he snaps, and Keigo doesn't know what riled up the boy so. He opens his mouth to ask but Echizen gives out a clipped 'I'm going to bed' and slams the door in his wake.

He is left in the hallway, not quite gaping.

0

Echizen appears in his dreams again.

He knows it is dream, consciously, this time, because everything around him is black. Echizen is gazing into him with soft, gold eyes and he is blinking slowly.

His hands reach for his hips again. Hollow, concave, ribs.

Echizen arches back, and Keigo traces a finger down his stomach, down towards the sides of his thighs. His knees are bony. He is not wearing any pants.

He spends an inordinate time on the jutting bone of Echizen's knees, and down to his calves, and feet. Echizen has small feet. He traces the toe first, and rubs down his ankles. He wonders if he has a foot fetish.

He looks up: Echizen is staring at him, without expression. But he is opening his mouth to say something, and Keigo is thinking, almost blindly, _don't say anything, if you do, I will wake up_. So he goes back, up, and meets lips with lips, and the boy's eyes don't close but they do slacken. He opens his mouth and puts his arms around Keigo. They are cold and wiry. His hands go back to caressing Echizen's ribcage.

When they part, Echizen with his slacken gaze and his swollen lips, smiles. He opens his mouth and says,

He wakes up. Above, Echizen is looming over him with a frown.

0

On instinct, half-asleep, Keigo grabs Echizen's wrist that is nearest to him and secures it. They stare at each other while the moonlight shines the boy's face.

He forgot to close his curtains tonight.

Echizen is straddling him. He can't move. Or, he is afraid that if he does move, there will be unpleasant explanations with embarrassing consequences. But he still can't make himself release Echizen's captive wrist.

"What," he finally manages.

Echizen shrugs. He is strangely nonchalant for someone who is sitting upon a half-sleep person, Keigo thinks blearily. "I had a bad dream," he says, "And I decided to check out your bed. Liar."

"Pardon?"

"Liar. It's big enough for two. For four, if it comes down to that."

"Four," he repeats.

Echizen sighs. He sighs a lot, even though heaven forbid, Echizen does things that on best days, warrant more than a sigh. "You have no sex drive," he says irritably, "Or you make a terrible gentlemen. Or you're not gay. I don't know what's the most horrible option."

Keigo does not want to make Echizen finish that trail of thought, but he does, and Keigo has no choice but to become fully awake and reassert his dignity. He scowls and with a twist, he pins down the already captive wrist further down his matress and hooks one leg around Echizen's waist. Echizen goes down willingly, and it is now Keigo who glowers at him from above. As soon as he notes, that Echizen's black hair does nicely with his white sheets.

Echizen smirks. "Better," he says, cheerfully.

Keigo observes the wrist. It does have a blue, protruding vein. Everyone does, of course, but in real life, he wonders if he has a wrist fetish. He brings the hand to his lips but hold it there, his lips pressing down firmly. Echizen watches him, his eyes hard. So they don't slacken, Keigo notes.

When his lips detach against the hand, he says, "You're the most insufferable human being I've met."

Echizen looks almost cheerful by that remark.


End file.
